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Tennis Stars Dominate the Forbes Highest-Paid Female Athletes list for 2019

Naomi Osaka (REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)

Forbes released the list of Forbes highest-paid female athletes for 2019, which was dominated by tennis superstars. All the positions in the top 10 are held by Tennis players led by the seven time Wimbledon singles champion Serena Williams.

Williams became the world’s highest paid female athlete for the fourth time in a row with earnings of $24.3 million. Serena, a winner of a proud 23 Grand Slam events, endorses dozens of brands including the likes of Nike, Beats, Gatorade which were recently joined by the addition of Pampers, Axa Financial and General Mills. Her estimated net worth of $225 million also makes her the only athlete on Forbes’ list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women.

Williams is closely followed by her newly found rival Naomi Osaka at $24.3 million. Entering into last year’s US open largely as an underdog sitting at 19th in the World rankings, she beat Serena Williams in the finals for a monumental win. Osaka became the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam and the first Asian to get to the top of the rankings for Womens singles.

This drastically increased her brand value. According to Forbes, her off-court earnings jumped from $1.5 million annually to an estimated $16 million for the 12 months ending June 1, after signing deals with Mastercard, All Nippon Airways, Nissan and Procter & Gamble.

Both Williams and Osaka earned more than twice as much as the third-highest-paid female athlete in the world, Angelique Kerber at $11.8 million.

American Soccer player and winner of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Alex Morgan is the first non-tennis player in the list with earnings of $5.8 m.

Indian ace shuttler PV Sindhu was also among the list sitting at 13th with earnings of $5.5 million. Golfer Ariya Jutanugarn is the only other name in the top 15 that does not associate to tennis.